1 2026:CGHC:18952 NAFR HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH AT BILASPUR CRMP No. 1077 of 2023 Smt. Sarla Tiwari W/o Shri Ashok Tiwari Aged About 62 Years R/o Mother Teresa Ward. Jagdalpur, District : Bastar(Jagdalpur), Chhattisgarh ... Petitioner versus 1 - State Of Chhattisgarh Through The District Magistrate, Jagdalpur, District : Bastar(Jagdalpur), Chhattisgarh 2 - Smt. Santosh Rani Khanna W/o Hansraj Khanna Aged About 63 Years R/o Vrindavan Colony, Jagdalpur, Tehsil - Jagdalpur And District- Bastar (C.G.) ---- Respondents For Petitioner : Mr. B.P. Sharma as well as Mr. M.L. Sakat, Advocates. For Respondent No.1/State : Ms. Ritika Verma, Panel Lawyer. For Respondent No.2 : Mr. Avinash K. Mishra, Advocate. Hon'ble Mr. Ramesh Sinha, Chief Justice Order on Board 24.04.2026 1. Heard Mr. B.P. Sharma as well as Mr. M.L. Sakat, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner. Also heard Ms. Ritika Verma, learned Panel Lawyer, appearing for the respondent No.1/State, as well as Mr. Avinash K. Mishra, learned counsel appearing for the respondent No.2. 2. The present petition has been filed by the petitioner under Section 482 Cr.P.C. with following prayer: “ It is, therefore, prayed that this Hon'ble Court may be RAJSHEKHAR SONI Digitally signed by RAJSHEKHAR SONI 2 pleased to exercise its inherent jurisdiction under Section 482 of Cr.P.C. and in exercise thereof admit the petition, call for the records and after hearing the parties in the matter quash the entire criminal proceedings pending in the files of the Court of Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Jagdalpur under Criminal Case No.1974/2014, so far as it relates to present petitioner, being violative of petitioner's fundamental rights granted under the Constitution of India and amounting to abuse of process of Court and abuse of process of law, and/or be pleased to set aside the order dated 30.1.2016 passed by the revisional Court in Criminal Revision No.2/16 affirming the order dated 30.11.2015 passed by the learned Judicial Magistrate 1st Class, Jagdalpur, so far as it relates to the petitioner herein, and in effect discharge the petitioner from the charges framed against her in the interest of justice. ” 3. The prosecution case in brief is that the petitioner has drafted agreements dated 02.02.2011 between the sellers Sadhu S/o Pandu, Hariram S/o Pandu and Pakli W/o Late Bangalu Ram, all residents of village Pandripaani, Tahsil Jagdalpur, District Bastar in respect of their property i.e. land bearing Khasra No.658 and 659 area 12,000 sq. ft. situate at village Pandripaani, Tahsil Jagdalpur, District Bastar in favour of one Smt. Santosh Rani Khanna (the complainant). Under the said agreement it has been agreed that sale consideration will be paid at the rate Rs.100/- per sq. ft. and advance amount of Rs.1,50,000/- has been paid by the purchaser to the sellers. Further, certain other terms have been agreed including the terms of payment of damages of double the amount of the advance paid by the seller to the purchaser or entitlement of the purchaser to get the sale deed executed from 3 the sellers through process of law. As luck would have it, the sale deed has not been registered and a complaint has been made that the petitioner has assured the complainant Smt. Santoshi Rani Khanna that the sale deed will be registered and in the meantime obtained Rs.4,70,000/- from complainant on the ground that by making-payment of the said amount to the sellers, the petitioner will get the sale deed registered in favour of the complainant and thereafter it has been said that the petitioner has got the sale deed registered in favour of other persons. On the basis of the written complaint, offence under Section 420/34 IPC has been registered against the petitioner and the sellers and after investigation, charge sheet has been filed. Instead of repeating the averments made in the charge sheet. On 30.11.2015, learned Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jagdalpur has framed charges against the petitioner under Section 420 read with Section 34 of the IPC, and against the said order, the petitioner along with the co-accused namely Sadhuram has preferred a Criminal Revision bearing Cr.R. No.02/2016 before the learned Second Additional Session Judge, Bastar at Jagdalpur, and the learned revisional Court after affirming the order dated 30.11.2015, dismissed the revision of the petitioner. Hence, this petition. 4. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that in the agreements have been executed by Sadhu S/o Pandu, Hariram S/o Pandu and Pakli W/o Late Bangalu Ram, in respect of 4 property bearing Khasra Nos. 658, 659 area 12000 sq. ft. situated in Village Pandripani, PH No.12, Jagdalpur, District – Bastar and in categorical terms the sellers have acknowledged receipt of amount of Rs. 3,00,000/- in one agreement and Rs. 1,50,000/- in another agreement being the party No.1 and party No.2. thus sale and purchase transaction has been entered into between party No.1 and party No.2 i.e. Sadhu and other with Santosh Rani Khanna, and agreement itself acknowledges receipt of amount in para-3 of both the agreements. It is further submitted that the allegation made against the petitioner that the petitioner was the person who received the entire amount of sale agreements are false, baseless and contrary to the term of agreement. The petitioner says and submits that rather it shows the attempt of the respondents to involve the petitioner in the present case so that the amount paid to the seller as an advance may be recovered from the petitioner, and there is no such documentary evidence to show the transaction of amount in question. It is further submitted that the complaint has been filed after 2.5 years from the date of agreement dated 02.02.2011. It is further submitted that the petitioner happens to be an Advocate by profession and being an Advocate she has only drafted an agreement of sale and since then the sale could not be materialized and sale deed has not been executed, therefore, the purchaser of the disputed property has lodged a report implicating the petitioner also, and she has not committed any forgery. Hence, the impugned orders must be 5 quashed. 5. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that even if all the allegations in the complaint taken at their face value are true, the basic essential ingredient of cheating is missing. In the matter of Binod Kumar vs. State of Bihar reported in (2014) 10 SCC 663 the Hon’ble Apex Court has dealt with somewhat similar aspect and in para-9 to 10, quoted below, has laid down the law that civil liability cannot be converted to criminal and such conversion amounts to abuse of process of Court: “9. In proceedings instituted on criminal complaint, exercise of the inherent powers to quash the proceedings is called for only in case where the complaint does not disclose any offence or is frivolous. It is well settled that the power under Section 482 Cr.P.C. should be sparingly invoked with circumspection, it should be exercised to see that the process of law is not abused or misused. The settled principle of law is that at the stage of quashing the complaint/FIR, the High Court is not to embark upon an enquiry as to the probability, reliability or the genuineness of the allegations made therein. In Smt. Nagawwa vs. Veeranna Shivalingappa Konjalgi, (1976) 3 SCC 736, this Court enumerated the cases where an order of the Magistrate issuing process against the accused can be quashed or set aside as under: “(1) where the allegations made in the complaint or the statements of the witnesses recorded in support of the same taken at their face value make out absolutely no case against the accused or the complainant does not disclose the essential ingredients of an offence which is alleged against the accused; where the allegations made in the complaint are patently absurd and inherently improbable so that no prudent person can ever reach a conclusion that there is a sufficient ground for proceeding against 6 the accused; where the discretion exercised by the Magistrate in issuing process is capricious and arbitrary having been based either on no evidence or on materials which are wholly irrelevant or inadmissible; and where the complaint suffers from fundamental legal defects such as, want of sanction, or absence of a complaint by legally competent authority and the like.” The Supreme Court pointed out that the cases mentioned are purely illustrative and provide sufficient guidelines to indicate contingencies where the High Court can quash the proceedings. 10. 10. In Indian Oil Corporation vs. NEPC India Ltd. And Ors., (2006) 6 SCC 736, this Court has summarized the principles relating to exercise of jurisdiction under Section 482 Cr.P.C. to quash complaints and criminal proceedings as under:- “The principles relating to exercise of jurisdiction under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to quash complaints and criminal proceedings have been stated and reiterated by this Court in several decisions. To mention a few—Madhavrao Jiwajirao Scindia v. Sambhajirao Chandrojirao Angre (1988) 1 SCC 692, State of Haryana v. Bhajan Lal,1992 Supp (1) SCC 335; Rupan Deol Bajaj v. Kanwar Pal Singh Gill (1995) 6 SCC 194, Central Bureau of Investigation v. Duncans Agro Industries Ltd (1996) 5 SCC 591; State of Bihar v. Rajendra Agrawalla (1996) 8 SCC 164, Rajesh Bajaj v. State NCT of Delhi,(1999) 3 SCC 259; Medchl Chemicals & Pharma (P) Ltd. v. Biological E. Ltd(2000) 3 SCC 269 [pic]Hridaya Ranjan Prasad Verma v. State of Bihar (2000) 4 SCC 168, M. Krishnan v. Vijay Singh (2001) 8 SCC 645 and Zandu Pharmaceutical Works Ltd. v. Mohd. Sharaful Haque( 2005) 1 SCC 122. The principles, relevant to our purpose are: (i) A complaint can be quashed where the allegations made in the complaint, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, do not prima facie constitute any offence or make out the case alleged against the accused. For this purpose, the complaint has to be examined 7 as a whole, but without examining the merits of the allegations. Neither a detailed inquiry nor a meticulous analysis of the material nor an assessment of the reliability or genuineness of the allegations in the complaint, is warranted while examining prayer for quashing of a complaint. (ii) A complaint may also be quashed where it is a clear abuse of the process of the court, as when the criminal proceeding is found to have been initiated with mala fides/malice for wreaking vengeance or to cause harm, or where the allegations are absurd and inherently improbable. (iii) The power to quash shall not, however, be used to stifle or scuttle a legitimate prosecution. The power should be used sparingly and with abundant caution. (iv) The complaint is not required to verbatim reproduce the legal ingredients of the offence alleged. If the necessary factual foundation is laid in the complaint, merely on the ground that a few ingredients have not been stated in detail, the proceedings should not be quashed. Quashing of the complaint is warranted only where the complaint is so bereft of even the basic facts which are absolutely necessary for making out the offence. (v) A given set of facts may make out: (a) purely a civil wrong; or (b) purely a criminal offence; or (c) a civil wrong as also a criminal offence. A commercial transaction or a contractual dispute, apart from furnishing a cause of action for seeking remedy in civil law, may also involve a criminal offence. As the nature and scope of a civil proceeding are different from a criminal proceeding, the mere fact that the complaint relates to a commercial transaction or breach of contract, for which a civil remedy is available or has been availed, is not by itself a ground to quash the criminal proceedings. The test is whether the allegations in the complaint disclose a criminal offence or not.” It is submitted that if the law laid down as above if applied, one 8 and only conclusion which may be drawn is that the petitioner cannot be involved criminally in the facts and circumstances of the case and in this view of the matter, the learned Magistrate ought not to have framed charges under Section 420/34 of the IPC against the petitioner, and thereafter the revision Court also ought not to have rejected the criminal revision No.02/2016 filed by the petitioner. 6. Learned counsel appearing for the respondent No.1/State submits that the concerned Police has inquired into the matter and the statements of the concerned witnesses have duly been recorded and after due investigation, it is revealed that the offence found to have been committed by the petitioner, has substance, thus there is no illegality or infirmity on framing the charges against the petitioner and the co-accused persons. Thus, the instant petitioner is liable to be dismissed. 7. Learned counsel appearing for the respondent No.2 submits that the petitioner was the person who received the entire amount of sale agreement at the time of obraining signature of P.W.-3 (Smt. Santosh Rani Khanna) in presence of P.W.-1 (Hansraj Khanna) and P.W.-2 (Vinod Khanna). It is further submitted that agreements to sale dated 02.02.2011 was taken place, it is specifically mentioned that the Respondent No.2 paid amount as advance total Rs. 4,50,000/- on 02.02.2011 and Rs.20,000/- on 20.06.2011 in hand of petitioner namely Smt. Sarla Tiwari. But, he 9 could not dispute the fact that the petitioner is an Advocate by profession. 8. I have heard learned counsel for the parties and considered the rival submissions made herein and gone through the record with utmost circumspection. 9. From the perusal of the records and submissions raised by the counsel for the petitioner, it transpires that the allegation made against the petitioner that he was the person who received the entire amount of sale agreements appears to be baseless and contrary to the term of agreement. Moreover, as there is no such documentary evidence to show the transaction of amount in question, which indicates the attempt of the respondents to involve the petitioner in the present case so that the amount paid to the seller as an advance may be recovered from the petitioner, the complaint has been filed after a delay of 2.5 years from the date of agreement dated 02.02.2011, furthermore, the petitioner happens to be an Advocate by profession and as the sale could not be materialized and sale deed has not been executed, therefore, the purchaser of the disputed property has lodged a report implicating the petitioner also, and she has not committed any forgery, thus, the present case appears to be a fit case for interference by this Court for exercising the inherent power under Section 482 of the CrPC. Hence, the entire criminal proceedings under Section 420/34 of the IPC pending against the petitioner in 10 the Court of learned Judicial Magistrate First Class, Jagdalpur bearing Criminal Case No.1974/2014, and the order dated 30.01.2016 passed by the revisional Court in Cr.R. No.02/2016, and all consequential proceedings arising thereof, are hereby quashed with respect to the present petitioner only. 10. Resultantly, this petition is allowed. 11. It is clear that the proceedings have been quashed only with respect to the present petitioner. So far as the other co-accused are concerned, the trial Court is directed to initiate proceedings against them separately under Section 420/34 of the IPC, in accordance with law. 12. Office is directed to send a copy of this order to the trial Court concerned for necessary information and compliance forthwith. Sd/- (Ramesh Sinha) Chief Justice Rajshekhar